


The Guardians of Cosette

by literaryFRIVOLOUSneophyte



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Gen, Ghosts, Motherhood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-22
Updated: 2014-03-22
Packaged: 2018-01-16 13:36:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1349299
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/literaryFRIVOLOUSneophyte/pseuds/literaryFRIVOLOUSneophyte
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>From the unimportant graveyard in which she had been buried, Fantine had followed the trail of her life and ended up in the footsteps of a runaway Valjean. She could not remember his name. She could not remember her own, nor the name of the world she drifted over. She only knew that there was a purpose in watching over the two mortal beings, and she had to stay by their side.</p><p>The ghost of Fantine existed like a whisper. She floated through the rain in the breath of mist, and she traveled through the fog and the wardrobe's shadows. Every time she felt the earthly instinct to blink, a month passed. She existed with a glimmer over Cosette's shoulder.</p><p>Some part of her existence was happy, and some other part of her was sad, too. She saw Cosette frown and felt tears that had no where to fall from. However, when she saw Cosette smile, the flowers grew a little prettier the next spring.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Guardians of Cosette

**Author's Note:**

> I tried to write this like the way Victor Hugo writes but if I stayed 100% true to his style this would be like one million words long tbh. listen to the playlist to accompany this fic here http://8tracks.com/softgrungegreaser/angels

Her child lived with guardians at her side. Where there had been abandonment and scorn for her mother, her daughter had a purest parental love. Both motherly and fatherly, Valjean was someone extraordinarily benevolent and he chose to share it with Cosette, her sweet Cosette.

There was more than just a man for Cosette's defense: there was a thicket of overgrown nature, a soundless gate, a dawn broadening on every morning's golden horizon, and, last but not least, a servant named Toussaint.

Toussaint doted on Cosette with a more professional and soft esteem; meanwhile, Valjean served her every whim. If Toussaint had a touch more spite in her neutrality, she would have seen Cosette as spoiled instead of adored. Something in the maid's heart must have picked up on the fact that there was a jewel in Valjean's life, and that jewel was Cosette.

To a convent who had forgotten many things of the heart, Cosette was the sun, and, to an orphan who had not known there were things to the heart at all, Valjean was the universe. Although, Toussaint was not aware of that backstory.

Fantine looked at the house with eyes that were gray only because the light of the afterlife reflected against them. In faint recognition, she noticed the existence of the maid flutter through the house, going about the chores. Vaguely, Fantine saw the streets behind her, the carriages bumping over the cobblestones and the gamin chasing after their games. Her entire being was focused on the life of one – her daughter, although she was barely aware of the fact.

From the unimportant graveyard in which she had been buried, Fantine had followed the trail of her life and ended up in the footsteps of a runaway Valjean. She could not remember his name. She could not remember her own, nor the name of the world she drifted over. She only knew that there was a purpose in watching over the two mortal beings, and she had to stay by their side.

The ghost of Fantine existed like a whisper. She floated through the rain in the breath of mist, and she traveled through the fog and the wardrobe's shadows. Every time she felt the earthly instinct to blink, a month passed. She existed with a glimmer over Cosette's shoulder.

Some part of her existence was happy, and some other part of her was sad, too. She saw Cosette frown and felt tears that had no where to fall from. However, when she saw Cosette smile, the flowers grew a little prettier the next spring.

It was when Valjean moved from the Gorbeau House to the home enveloped by the wildness of Mother Nature did Fantine wake up. She followed her daughter to the doorway, and then stopped. She sank against the wall, and she stayed there like a dog caught by their chain.

The garden was still bound by the lingering past of gardeners and humans who tried to keep it tamed. Fantine lowered herself to the ground and, for the first time since she had reappeared under the sun, she remembered the existence of her hands and spread her ghostly fingers through the soil.

In minutes, in days, in weeks – the garden grew with a wild spirit, with the energy of a life that had faded. Fantine became the lifeblood of the ground, her fingers like veins, her body like the chambers of a heart. Her ghost bled the bright explosion of her previous life into the garden, letting the flowers soak in her presence. And so she found a way to be one of Cosette's guardians.

One countless moment of her halfway-there afterlife, a man invaded her blossoming, beautiful, deflective garden and kissed her daughter. Of course, Fantine was not altogether aware that the being was her daughter, but in the very fibers of her shadowy form she felt a reckoning.

The two star-crossed lovers pulled back from each others lips with breathless joy, the first and last of their intimate touches for nights to come, and Fantine felt an urge to pull back from the ground and bring wrath upon the boy's foolish head.

She knew only of men who left their lovers behind in the dust, and then she knew only of her anger and bitterness. The leaves on the trees quivered with the thunderstorm brewing in their roots.

“There's my son,” the wind breathed where her ears once were.

The ghost of Fantine whipped around, vine-like and dangerous, and found that there was another ghost standing in her guardian.

The spirit was dressed like a Napoleon colonel, and he spoke with an aged voice – aged for one released from their mortal vessel. The apparition settled down besides Fantine as if he was an invited guest in her garden. The old bones of the trees groaned in the breeze with his movement.

“His name is Marius, and he is a worthy lad,” the man said.

A name appeared in Fantine's head. “That is my Cosette,” she said steadily. 

Fantine looked back on her daughter, knowing her name for the first time in many restless years, and shivered under the weight of an unknowable yearning.

“I am Georges Pontmercy, baron under Napoleon. Well, I was.” the ghost introduced himself. “Who are you?”

“I am...” she hesitated. “Fantine.”

“What is your surname, if I may ask?”

“I was only called Fantine, and I do not know any other names of mine.”

“It is a pleasure to meet you, Madame Fantine. It seems as though we are both drawn to our children, and they are now drawn to each other.”

“My child,” Fantine mumbled. She let out a sigh that shook in the branches. “She looks at your Marius with love.”

Pontmercy noticed the rumbling in the earth, and he reassured Fantine, “Marius will not treat Cosette like a love affair. He has my blood, and I trust him to live up to it.”

At the phrase “love affair,” Fantine grimaced in deep rage. “ _Men,”_ she hissed, “You don't know about men like I do. He will eat her up and spit her out.”

The ghost of Pontmercy gestured to the house behind him. “I have seen the people in this house. Has the man who is caring for your Cosette devoured her and left her bones? She seems in full health to me.”

“Valjean. Jean Valjean.” The spirit of Fantine trembled at the name, grateful and commemorative.

"You see. There is good in man yet."

Fantine stared at Pontmercy, and then, abruptly, she let out a laugh that whistled past the house and into the streets. The gamin stopped in their tracks, and one of them swore they had heard their mother calling their name. That particular gamin's child was, in fact, dead, and was not Fantine. Any mother or grandmother walking by would have understood the laugh that came from the phantom throat of the deceased Fantine; they would have understood it in in the air and trickling beneath their feet. Nuns would have immediately begun to pray.

Her eyes beheld Cosette the jewel, and she longed to reach out to her. But she was no longer living, and to take her from Marius seemed now a crime against God. Felix had been older, old enough to know better than to flirt with a young girl who took flirting for love, and he had not pulled back from his kisses. Marius seemed a young lovebird, and nothing but Cosette was in his eyes. In the threads of her soul, Fantine sensed a dedication in Marius and Cosette that was altogether both foolish and admirable.

“Marius is in love with your Cosette. Do you permit it?”

Fantine looked at Georges Pontmercy. Around them, the darkness of night gave way to the yellows of day, and their children were scattered apart by its light, impatient for their destiny together. Their parents, too, were effected, and their gray forms were illuminated with a holy glow unseen by the naked eye. The flowers flourished under the first orange rays.

She pressed his hand with a smile, which Pontmercy returned.

“I think I am going to go now. Will you join me?” he asked with an air of finality.

Fantine gazed at the garden she was connected to and shook her head. “I have a task, and that task is Cosette. I will be here for her as long as she needs me.”

“You are a honorable guardian. Almost, like an angel,” Pontmercy said, and then he vanished into the daylight in the waking orchestra of birdsong.


End file.
